‘Game Of Thrones’ Season 8: Kit Harington Reveals Why He Cried During The Final Script Reading

For fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones, the wait until the final season is a hard one. Not only because its airdate is sometime in 2019, but because they will have to say goodbye to many much-loved characters. However, this struggle is the same for the cast and crew involved with the hit epic fantasy series. In fact, Kit Harington reportedly cried not once, but twice, during the read-through for the final script ever for Game of Thrones.

In October of 2017, the cast of HBO’s Game of Thrones sat down to do the last script read-through for the final season. As to be expected, it was an emotional time. After all, this show has spanned seven seasons so far and is considered a major hit for HBO.

For Kit Harington, who plays Jon Snow, it was his first acting gig, so his life has changed dramatically thanks to Game of Thrones. According to Entertainment Weekly, when Kit read the script for the final episode ever of Game of Thrones, he cried.

The final season scripts arrived all at once, so the cast involved got to read the entire season’s arc and the conclusion of their character’s story all in one hit. However, the script was layered by security and password encrypted in order to make sure there were no leaks.

This first read-through was done privately by the cast. There were two exceptions to this.

Featured image credit: HBO

Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth) was unable to open his scripts due to the extra security. And, Kit Harington, who refused to read the scripts alone.

So, when the cast gathered together in Belfast to do the formal read-through, Kit’s reaction was raw.

“I walked in saying, ‘Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know,'” Harington said. “What’s the point of reading it to myself in my own head when I can listen to people do it and find out with my friends?”

As Entertainment Weekly suggests, at this point, like his character, Jon Snow, he literally knew nothing.

During this reading, Kit Harington reportedly cried. Then, when they got to the end of the read-through, he cried again thanks to what the showrunners had written at the very bottom of the script.

“The second time was the very end,” Harington says.

“Every season, you read at the end of the last script ‘End of Season 1,’ or ‘End of Season 2. ‘ This read ‘End of Game of Thrones.'”

But, it wasn’t just Kit Harington that was feeling the overwhelming finality of it all.

“This is it,” Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys Targaryen, revealed.

“Everything feels more intense. I had a scene with someone and I turned to him and said, ‘Oh my God, I’m not going to do this ever again,’ and that brings tears to my eyes.”

“There was a great sense of grief,” Lena Headey, who plays Cersei Lannister, said. “It’s a huge sense of loss, like we’ll never have anything like this again.”

The final season of Game of Thrones will premiere on HBO in the first half of 2019. The new prequel series based in the Game of Thrones universe and set thousands of years before the events occurring in Game of Thrones is currently filming.